There is so much in the news today that we are forced to filter out how much we can read and hear. The earth is spinning faster, parts of the moon may be habitable for human life, and rainwater is not safe to drink. Today, science and politics are like oil and water. One cannot seem to aid the other or come together on issues.
In Florida, the Governor fired a twice elected Tampa Democratic State Attorney, Andrew Warren, because DeSantis does not like how he thinks. Stay tuned for Warren’s lawsuit! In Pensacola, a teacher was told to take down pictures in his classroom of his “inspirational American heroes.” Teaching in a Black community, the list included Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriett Tubman, Colin Powell, and George Washington Carver. A district employee for the school also removed a picture of Barack Obama saying that the materials were “age inappropriate.” Michael James, a white Special Ed teacher, had hoped to motivate his mostly Black class of students with inspirational leaders who look like them. Instead of doing that, James resigned because of the circumstances. We predicted that this sort of thing would happen and what a loss of another great teacher.
Our choice for Florida Governor this November, Charlie Crist, stated that “DeSantis’s culture wars are infiltrating every corner of our State and it is Florida students who are paying the price.” We believe that we are all paying the price for the bullying and the hate being proliferated by the Right Wing Evangelicals and Nationalists who claim to be Christians. While Right Wing politicians sit around making plans like they are in a beer hall, their guns and God thinking are getting old. Their predatory tactics are getting stale like week old, white bread left on a dirty kitchen counter. As they fabricate issues, they know that the easiest problems to solve are those that do not exist so they make them up. Let’s remove books and pictures and heroes from classroom walls, for example. So, those emulating Trump and his sidekicks like DeSantis are carrying on making life miserable for many. Some think that Trump is a spy, a mole, while others believe that he is just a con artist who would sell his soul for a dollar. Either way he is no national treasure and will hopefully be soon forgotten. But, this is old news…
This week, we have some news fresh from the garden, brand-new news. This week, the raid on Mar-a-Lago was the best news that we have heard in a long time. Our text messages were buzzing and hope was in the hills again. The fact that the FBI did this on a Monday when the Rachel Maddow Show aired was a bonus. The FBI’s timing was perfect. As they invaded Trump’s Florida safe house, he was in New York practicing taking the Fifth – which he did over 440 times during his under oath deposition. As we know, Trump works best with a big black sharpie which was absent from the New York deposition because he had only a sharp tongue left to protect himself.
Meanwhile in Florida, plowing through old MacDonald’s wrappers and empty soda cups, the FBI went through the doors, right to the Mar-a-Lago safe, and down the crooked stairs into the basement. The news continued to spurt out tidbits of juicy information about Trump – how he had flushed secret papers down the toilet. And now we know why. On December 7, 2019, while in office, Trump went on a tangent about American low flow toilets saying, “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once.” You can’t make this stuff up! Another report from a Trump aide said that he actually ate some classified papers. We presume a colonoscopy will be in order to retrieve such information. Many of us would love to see him stuck in the rear for this!!
Yes, Trump felt the pain as he squealed that the raid was unlawful. And as usual, he has a short memory for things he does not like. Maybe we could remind him…
Because Trump is being such a bad sport about the raid, Merrick Garland said this week that the Justice Department has filed a request in court to unseal the search warrant and property receipt from the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. This gives us a sense, at least for the moment, that justice will prevail and that the civil war that Trump is raging has been set back just a bit. Clearly, we are in the middle of history and living each painful moment day by day.
As Trump faces his angry, hateful followers with a clenched fist, we all await the future of the upshot of this week’s news. As we hold onto hope, we recall that it has been said that if Lincoln had given up, this country would be half free and half slaves. We have many reasons not to give up. We know that history is difficult to live through but it is a time to be cautious but not a time to be silent. We need all of our voices to ring out the truth and we need to all quote the Constitution like a Georgetown Law Professor. We can do it, and if we do, it will make us all look smart.
Finally, we take a breath and hope that the truth is not dead but just in need of some reviving. We envision pumping the chest of our Constitution in CPR fashion saying, “Wake up, you have a lot to live for, don’t go, we need you.” We want this patient to live!
A 911 Call
